Tuesday, November 30, 2004

In Which 50.01% of Alabama Voters Embarrass the Human Race

Now you're going to think I'm making this up, but sadly, I'm not.

Alabama had a constitutional amendment on the ballot November 2 to erase certain incredibly offensive language from their state constitution. Here's an excerpt from the Washington Post article (available at MSNBC here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6596687/):
Alabama voters...refus[ed] to approve a constitutional amendment to erase segregation-era wording requiring separate schools for "white and colored children" and to eliminate references to the poll taxes once imposed to disenfranchise blacks...The amendment had two main parts: the removal of the separate-schools language and the removal of a passage -- inserted in the 1950s in an attempt to counter the Brown v. Board of Education ruling against segregated public schools -- that said Alabama's constitution does not guarantee a right to a public education. Leading opponents, such as Alabama Christian Coalition President John Giles, said they did not object to removing the passage about separate schools for "white and colored children." But, employing an argument that was ridiculed by most of the state's newspapers and by legions of legal experts, Giles and others said guaranteeing a right to a public education would have opened a door for "rogue" federal judges to order the state to raise taxes to pay for improvements in its public school system.

Yes, guaranteeing the right to a public education is clearly a subversive trick to raise taxes. I salute your acumen, sir. Perhaps now the submarines filled with Communists will be recalled from their positions just off the coast of Mobile, because clearly your state isn't going to stand for any of this. Party like it's 1849.

Sometimes it's embarrassing to be human. Damned evolution. If it wasn't for that, I would just be sitting in a tree flinging crap at my friends.